Efficient testing of software presents one of the biggest challenges for software developers today. As computers and the Internet continue to form the backbone of modern business, commerce, and communication, the importance of having reliable, consistent software has become increasingly more and more critical. Particularly for businesses, errors and bugs in software can lead to losses in revenue, customer dissatisfaction, liability, and other problems. To avoid such issues, developers of software applications, whether hosted on personal computers or on websites, must put the applications through thorough testing before deploying them to users.
Automated testing software makes the process of software testing more efficient and reliable. Such software contains instructions that test software by performing various operations on the software and check for successful execution. Hence, instead of an individual testing out each function of an application manually, the automated testing software can be executed on the application to automatically test the functions, saving valuable time and cost in manual labor.
However, many issues still persist. For example, when an application's code is refactored, which is common for many types of applications, such as websites, locators corresponding to user interface elements in the application may be changed. Because automated testing software may rely on locators to identify user interface elements in the application's user interface during testing, the test may fail after such refactoring. Accordingly, automated testing software may need to be updated to ensure that locators are accurate after code is refactored. Producing such updates on the automated testing software manually is burdensome, inefficient, and costly. To compound these difficulties, software applications are becoming larger and more complex, and rapidly evolving business and technology environments require ongoing code refactoring to deliver updates and fixes. As a result, software testing and maintaining properly functioning automated testing software for constantly evolving code presents a formidable task for software developers. A more efficient approach is desirable for automated software testing.